countercuff

English

Etymology

From counter- +‎ cuff (“blow, hit”), first used in the title of the 1589 polemical tract A Countercuffe giuen to Martin Iunior by the pseudonymous "venturuous, hardie, and renowned" Cavaliero Pasquill.

Noun

countercuff (plural countercuffs)

1. (rare, archaic) A polemical response.
   • 1941, George Sampson, The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, page 299:

     In Poetaster, or The Arraignment (printed 1602) Jonson gave a countercuff to his antagonists by ridiculing Marston as Crispinus and Dekker as Demetrius, and presenting himself as Horace.

   • 1950, George Gregory Smith, “Introduction”, in Elizabethan Critical Essays, volume 1, page xxix:

     Gosson's plea that Poetry makes men effeminate directly inspires Sidney's memorable countercuff that it, above all things, is the companion of camps⁶.

   • 1973, The Listener, volume 89, BBC, page 218:

     As a countercuff to visual media, he lays down the ‘general principle’ that arts which leave the imagination something to do excel those that minister to passive consumers.

   • 1982, E. A. J. Honigmann, Shakespeare's Impact on His Contemporaries, page 118:

     That could be Jonson's countercuff to Polixenes' speech ('The art itself is nature'), and to Mrs Taleporter's true ballads.

   • 2000, “Notes and News”, in The Gissing Journal, volume XXXVI, number 3, page 38:

     William Levy has sent a countercuff which we dare not print, but if he publishes it in another journal, we promise to give the reference.